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Colossus the Fire Dragon
Colossus The Fire Dragon is a Schwarzkopf looping roller coaster located at The South Midway . The ride opened in 1983 as "Colossus". Details Fire Dragon is a classic steel looping roller coaster designed and built by famed German coaster designer Anton Schwarzkopf. Since it was moved to Lagoon in 1983 it has been one of the more popular rides at Lagoon. In 1984 it was selected by People magazine as one of the top 10 roller coasters in the country. The ride is actually a mobile roller coaster, and initially toured with German traveling fairs after its manufacture in 1981. It is designed to be set up or taken down in a 24 hour period. The ride features two loops, one after another. When upside-down in the loops 75% of a rider's body weight is pressed against the seat making it impossible for a person to fall out. Properly seated riders would not fall out of the train even if they did not have a lapbar. The lapbar is used to prevent people from standing up, and would hold riders in place in the extremely unlikely event that the train stalls while upside-down (this has never happened). The ride can operate with up to three trains at one time, and was operated in this mode in the past. At some point the park decided to generally only run a maximum of two trains as an extra safety precaution. On rare occasions when the park is at capacity the park may still choose to safely run three trains. Fire Dragon is the only "Double Looping with additional trackway curve" model of roller coaster that was ever built. It is very similar to the more common "Double Looping" model (such as Laser at Dorney Park) but has additional helices near the end of the ride. Relocation Colossus the Fire Dragon is a portable roller coaster, so it was fairly inexpensive (2.5 million US dollars when built) and it can be dismantled & rebuilt within a day or two, even though it is quite large. It is almost identical to the former Laser at Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom, except (as explained above) the Laser did not have the extra curve in the helix and its colors were purple with green supports and black top rails. Laser was also slightly taller. Fire Dragon traveled on a European fair circuit for approximately two years, before Lagoon Corporation purchased the attraction. The ride was later installed at Lagoon Park in Farmington, Utah, in 1983 where the roller coaster has been located since. Seating 3 trains with 7 cars per train. Riders are arranged 2 across in 2 rows for a total of 28 riders per train Ride After climbing the 85 feet lift hill, a 1/3 turn follows. Riders get a glimpse of the Wild Mouse, Spider, and Wicked coasters, before plummeting down to the left, and straight through the 65 foot back-to-back loops, with riders experiencing G's of up to 4.9. Two helix turns follow, the first of which is very large, arching over the "bridge" or elevated part of the queue, the up and through the center of the second loop. After that the train passes over the roof of the station, then down and around, turning diagonally through the middle of the two loops into the G-inducing helix. There are a few more curves, then the final brake run. Gallery Colossus the Fire Dragon 2.jpg Category:Rides Category:Roller Coasters